Ghostery Insights

Role: Product Lead (Research & Strategy → Executive Oversight)
Company: Ghostery
Product: Prosumer / professional analytics browser extension

Overview

Ghostery Insights was an attempt to productize the professional use cases we had long observed inside Ghostery’s free consumer extension.

A meaningful subset of Ghostery’s users—marketers, engineers, analysts, and performance teams—were already using the extension as a real-time diagnostic tool at work. Ghostery Insights was designed to turn that behavior into a paid, prosumer product that delivered deeper analytics, real-time visibility, and actionable insight—without compromising user privacy.

Context

For years, we observed two parallel truths:

1. Professional usage of Ghostery was widespread.
   Some companies even listed Ghostery as a recommended tool in job descriptions. Users relied on it to:

   • Validate martech and adtech implementations
   • Confirm pixels were firing correctly
   • Diagnose performance and page-load issues

2. There was proven enterprise demand for this data.
   Prior to our acquisition by Cliqz, Ghostery’s parent company, Evidon, sold an enterprise platform—Marketing Cloud Management (MCM)—that helped large organizations understand and govern their martech and adtech stacks.

MCM combined:

• Aggregated real-world Ghostery data
• Synthetic scans of customer websites
• Tracker relationship mapping ("Trackermap")

This data helped enterprises improve performance, ensure compliance, and understand the downstream privacy and security implications of their technology footprint.

Strategic Hypothesis

Ghostery Insights was built on a clear hypothesis:

If professionals are already using Ghostery for free at work, a privacy-respecting, analytics-focused version could be monetized directly—bridging consumer trust and enterprise-grade insight.

This was conceived as a prosumer product: more powerful than the consumer extension, but simpler and more accessible than heavyweight enterprise platforms.

Product Concept

Ghostery Insights was implemented as a separate browser extension that:

• Collected richer diagnostic data
• Shared that data directly with the user
• Added analytical tooling beyond simple blocking
• Included a real-time tracker relationship map

The product allowed users to analyze what was happening on their sites in situ, using real data to troubleshoot issues quickly and accurately.

Role & Team

I originally led early research and prototyping for a concept called Ghostery Pro while still at Evidon. That work laid the foundation for Ghostery Insights, which was later revived after the Cliqz acquisition as the company explored new revenue sources beyond data monetization.

Once revived, Ghostery Insights was staffed as its own product:

• Dedicated PM
• Designer
• 3–5 Engineers
• Shared QA and Support

I remained closely involved in early research, strategy, and positioning, while providing executive oversight as the team executed.

Traction & Challenges

Ghostery Insights achieved early traction and generated initial revenue, but faced three major headwinds:

1. Value overlap with the free product
   The core Ghostery extension already provided meaningful diagnostic insight at no cost, limiting upsell potential.

2. Loss of enterprise distribution
   After the Cliqz acquisition, Ghostery no longer had access to Evidon’s enterprise sales motion. Insights became a B2C product without sales support, despite being well-suited to enterprise buyers.

3. Runway constraints
   When Ghostery’s assets were sold to Brave, remaining runway evaporated and Ghostery Insights was shut down shortly thereafter.

Outcome

Ghostery Insights did not reach full scale, but it validated several important ideas:

• Professional and enterprise demand existed within Ghostery’s consumer user base
• Privacy-preserving analytics products could deliver real value
• Distribution and focus mattered as much as product quality

Key Learnings

• Prosumer products live or die on clear differentiation from free offerings
• Enterprise-grade value is difficult to unlock without sales and distribution
• Data products must balance insight with ethical and privacy constraints
• Focus is a force multiplier—spreading a small team across too many bets reduces the chance of any one succeeding

Ghostery Insights reflects an honest attempt to bridge consumer trust and professional-grade analytics, and a formative lesson in focus, distribution, and monetizing data responsibly.